Gaza team defuses live bombs and shells without protective suits

Nuseirat, Gaza: Hazem Abu Murad and his team have none of the equipment you would expect in a unit of munitions disposal experts.

Theirs is one of the most dangerous jobs in Gaza but they have no protective suits, no robots and no portable X-ray systems.

Instead, they assess the situation – a potential unexploded mortar, shell or missile – on sight alone and work out the safest way to disarm and dispose of it as far from civilians as possible.

As his team examines a large missile dropped from an Israeli F16 into a field where crops of potatoes and tomatoes usually grow, Mr Abu Murad of Gaza’s Explosive Ordinance Disposal Police admits there have been some frightening moments in his 15-year long career. "There is one minute between life and death," he says. "If I move my fingers two millimetres the wrong way, I am gone." After pronouncing the one-tonne bomb safe to move, a bulldozer is summoned to the site, and it rumbles slowly along a narrow, sandy track and into the field.

Hazem Abu Murad (in white shirt) stands with members of his munitions disposal team on Thursday. Photo: Ruth Pollard

Under the watchful eye of the family who were forced to flee their home 10 days earlier when the missile landed, the dozer driver lowers its tray and scoops up the enormous missile along with a large pile of dirt and lifts it high up into the air. The bulldozer then trundles out of the residential farming district.

Following 29 days of Israeli aerial, naval and tank bombardment in which the Israel Defence Forces say they struck 4762 sites across Gaza, the risk to civilians, especially children, of unexploded munitions has skyrocketed, experts warn.

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One young boy lost his hand in an explosion on Thursday, the disposal team says, and there are fears more will soon fall victim to the 2000 unexploded shells and mortars Mr Abu Murad estimates have yet to be recovered following the IDF operations.

As Fairfax Media followed the 39-year-old’s team around central Gaza on the third day of the 72-hour ceasefire, he received call after call from worried residents alerting him to their discoveries of artillery shells, mortars and missiles.

Staff members of a Deir al-Balah hospital look over the damage caused by Israeli shelling. Photo: New York Times

At day's end they were to be taken to an empty field between Deir al-Balah and Gaza City and detonated

One expert estimated Israel had dropped 10,000 tonnes of explosives on Gaza from the air alone, and added that once the tank and artillery shells were included Mr Abu Murad and his team would have little time to spare in coming months.

Afif Quneibi, a Palestinian orthopaedic specialist, inspects the damage to a patient room at the al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, caused by Israeli strikes on July 21, in Deir al-Balah. Photo: AP

"With every escalation the threat is renewed, this creates new victims and the process of clearing Gaza of these explosive remnants of war must begin all over again," the expert said.

“Eighty per cent of the victims of these weapons are children … and soon we will be facing a lot more of these victims."

As well as unexploded Israeli weapons, Mr Abu Murad says his team of 70 engineers has also dealt with "tens" of rockets launched at Israel by militant groups in Gaza that fell short of their target and instead landed inside Gaza, creating danger for Palestinian civilians.

Along with the risk associated with disarming and moving bombs, he said another threat was being targeted directly by Israeli soldiers as he and members of his team went about their jobs.

"Israel targets us, they know who we are," says Mr Abu Murad, who along with his team has received training from experts from the United States, Britain and the European Union and has worked under both Fatah-led and Hamas-led authorities.

"They have killed three of my team, injured two officers and ... destroyed three cars," he says.

One member of his team, Brigadier Samir al-Najjar, was arrested in the Israeli ground invasion of Khuza'a, and has not been seen since, he said.

Although he works for a department that falls under the control of the Hamas-run authority, Mr Abu Murad describes his group as a civilian, humanitarian team that in peacetime ran education and awareness programs about the dangers of unexploded munitions.

Israel doesn’t think so – he said it refused to allow his team the equipment it needed to safely disarm the weapons.

"It is important to us to take the dangerous munitions away from the people [but] Israel says we are 'supporting terrorism' and will not allow us the materials we need to do our jobs," Mr Abu Murad said.

It is understood international observers are invited to supervise the demolition of the live munitions. The disarmament expert said that in his experience "whatever they collect, they destroy".

Fairfax Media asked the IDF if it had any concerns about the way unexploded ordinance were disposed of in Gaza.

In response it said it was yet to decide on the body responsible for clearing munitions that were not detonated during Operation Protective Edge.

"Following Operation Cast Lead, a UN taskforce was in charge of disarming munitions that weren't detonated during the operation," a spokeswoman said in a written statement.

One of the visits Mr Abu Murad’s team made on Thursday was to the al-Aqsa Hospital at Deir al-Balah, which was struck with at least 12 tank shells on July 21, killing a patient and three of his relatives and injuring several nursing and ambulance staff.

As the team stood outside the hospital to plan its assessment of the scene, 40-year-old Ibrahim Ali, Mr Abu Murad’s deputy, who says he has defused 41 weapons over his career, described his method for removing dangerous munitions from civilian areas.

"I remove the fuse and carry it against my body away from the people," he said.

He does this while wearing no protective gear, just cotton trousers and a shirt.

A brief examination of the third-floor surgical wing found extensive damage caused by the attack. But no shells were left in the hospital, which was still managing to operate despite the structural damage and gaping holes in one of its main wards.

The phone rings and his team is soon on the move again – a bomb dropped by an Israeli F16 has been found in a house nearby – and they circle back towards danger once more.